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A lazy last day off. Avoiding a cream egg run until tomorrow (difficult).

Brother visitation. It’s evident he will marry this girl and progress to being less and less happy. Today was the day that finally became something to accept. It’s easy to deduce he’s saving for a ring and will do as he is being told to and propose, maybe within the year.

She doesn’t even let him get groceries he likes, or go grocery shopping (which he likes), ever. Considering that there’s nothing L.G. and I like better than grocery shopping together and planning what to eat, strangely the saddest.

The concert was above par. The night before we partied in dubious circumstances and I found myself dancing with a bunch of dudes, mostly three years younger, at a bar. Men love dancing. Just saying.

After the show I somehow ended up at a townie house party/kegger. It was like watching an episode of Jersey Shore – muscled guys in Gym Tan Laundry mode flailing in the living room while very tanned ladies with very straight hair dance battled them. There was intense high speed bouncing that was sort of impressive given all the keg stands being done by girls. The house was too small and the people weren’t friendly, they clearly had all been hanging out together since they were fifteen and disapproved of interlopers. That was the giveaway that it wasn’t a college party, the lack of openness to strangers and the way the girls there quickly claimed whatever juiced up Ron Ron style sir was theirs (don’t worry, ladies, you can keep him).

Something strange was apparent today. When I was young, I was mildly obsessed with celebrating holidays of all kinds. I fantasized about having Martha Stewart style Thanksgiving table settings and dyed eggs while skipping class. Halloween was a three day event. I wished my family had more traditions and got upset when they would abandon The Way Things Were Done without notice.

And then it stopped.

Days meant to be spent eating with family, or friends, became just another unacknowledged stat holiday. Questions about plans, swiftly dodged, answers sometimes falsified.

A close friend of mine confided that he was arranging his life in a particular way so he would never have to spend Christmas alone again. Everything he was doing, despite outward appearances, was orchestrated to create the family and stability he lacked. If he could just get all the pieces in place, that family would appear and he would have a shot at something normal.

We’re all trying to figure it out. The story can be cast two ways. Yes, it’s deeply sad, a quiet admission for a kindred crowd, because to state aloneness feels like blameworthy failure. But, in the version I’ll tell myself tonight, it’s a story about hope and unfound halves. Out there, somewhere, is someone whose holidays are just like your own – no matter how deformed – who understands when you’d rather not this year, who is building a life like a perennial bulb; your new life in waiting.